#top fives meme

[gay-jesus-probably]

I like the general fandom trend to just take the plot of Hyrule Warriors as a loose guideline at best and just use the whole concept as a good excuse to get blorbos to interact across timelines, BUT I'm very disappointed that everyone is missing the comedic potential of a very specific squad of characters:

Young Link (aka Mask), who walks out of the nightmare of Majora's Mask and immediately gets portal kidnapped into a temporal war, takes one look at the whole mess and decides that you could not fucking pay him to admit to being the resident expert on Time Shenanigans. He introduces himself with the title of Hero of Termina, and definitely doesn't have any other ones, that would be crazy. Hero of Time? Never heard of him.

Tetra, who is a kickass pirate captain with zero patience for people trying to shove her into the Designated Princess role, and realizes immediately that Oh Fuck, this Hyrule has a lot of Ideas about how the Hero and the Princess are supposed to properly play their parts, the second they realize she's technically a Zelda they're gonna shove her in a goddamn dress and damsel her again, that's not happening. So she's definitely just a really cool pirate captain, nothing else going on here at all, definitely not the heir of the Hylian royal family in her time, that'd be crazy.

Ravio, who is literally just a palette swapped Link, meaning that the second his hood comes off, things are gonna get Awkward. There's no way in hell he's dealing with all that Hero baggage, that's Link work, so that giant bunny hood/mask is practically superglued to his head, and he's not taking it off for love or money.

Spirit Tracks Zelda, who is just in the Phantom Armour the whole time, and passing herself off as just a friendly ghost posessing a suit of armour to help the Hero of Spirits. Of course she isn't Princess Zelda, that's ridiculous, if she were a Zelda then people would start getting really weird about her technically being dead, and boy does that ever sound like a whole Thing she doesn't want to deal with, so she can't possibly be Zelda, she's just a nice ghost knight. Also, her teenage grandma is here, and that's kinda weird, so it's easier to just not admit to being royalty and avoid that awkward conversation.

Finally there's Sheik, who is not the Princess Zelda of the era straight up abandoning her war torn country for months at a time so she can risk her life in extreme cosplay for no clear reason, but is instead the actual Sheik from Ocarina of Time, who just beat Ganondorf like a month ago and is still trying to process what the fuck to do now. Also, he's been pretending to be a boy since he was ten, and is realizing there's a pretty good chance that he isn't pretending anymore, so that's a whole other can of worms. But for the last seven years of his life, being Princess Zelda meant certain death, so he's not really inclined to introduce himself like when in a new and stressful situation (not to mention he might actually just not be a girl named Zelda anymore), so he automatically introduces himself as just Sheik the spooky ninja man, and fuck he's in too deep to back out now, looks like he's committing to the bit. If you think you sense the Triforce of Wisdom on him, no you don't.

Cue shenanigans as the five of them attempt to hide that they're all actually kind of A Big Deal. The group motto is "Nobody says shit", which is usually delivered as a frantic hiss whenever someone slips up. Just the reunion between Sheik and Mask alone would be absolutely buckwild given how they parted, and how they're both frantically pretending to Not be involved with each other. For added hilarity and/or drama, Sheik gives his semi-bullshit cover story of having just been a friend of the Hero of Time, then runs into said Hero of Time and they both have to desperately pretend not to know each other, because if anyone picks up on the mountain of baggage between them then Mask is busted, and he won't hesitate to drag Sheik down with him out of sheer spite. Not to mention the weird balance of Sheik being used to this Link being a teenager that's actually a small child, and now has to adjust to Link who is a small child that's actually a teenager.

Also, i really feel like we're all missing out on the comedy potential of Ganondorf recognizing Young Link on sight and the two of them immediately launching into a grudge match with some extremely personal and specific insults on both sides. Meanwhile literally everybody else is just standing there watching, trying to process the fact that out of every single person that's been pulled out of time, Ganondorf only has personal beef with a literal nine year old.

I just feel like we're all really sleeping on the potential for Shenanigans here. The whole thing is an absurd mess, why not have some fun with it?

[jwillbiteyourfingersoff]

welp, that answers the "would you fuck your clone" question (I'm not surprised)

[tempoaryblogformightyjensblog]

[veliseraptor]

Top five spiciest untamed opinions!

man, I've been in my own little corner of fandom for long enough that I feel like I struggle a little to parse what is spicy of my opinions and what isn't, but here's a go at it

The Untamed is a show with complex, morally grey characters that's telling a slightly different but not inherently inferior story. Maybe I'm just a bit defensive about this, and I have with time come to appreciate a lot of things about the novel over the way they play out in the show, but The Untamed was the first version of the story that I fell in love with and I think at least some of the criticisms of it overstate the degree to which it morally simplifies the story. I think, whether because of requirements of censorship or other reasons, that the moral messiness of the story is subtler, I don't think it's absent, and while Jin Guangyao in particular falls victim to a pretty intense villain edit the narrative still has plenty of sympathy for him (even if the audience, all too often, does not). I think it's telling a slightly different story (as others have discussed), but I think it's a strong adaptation that still works with the underlying themes of the text.

However, that being said, The lessening of Wei Wuxian's culpability, as in the introduction of the second flautist, weakens his character. I feel like the character of Wei Wuxian as we see him in The Untamed still has the recognizable flaws of the character from the novel - I think the degree to which they're sometimes claimed to be toned down is overstated, which I think I've written some about before. He's still at least a little arrogant, causes problems, has a definite temper, and doesn't always respect other peoples' choices, among other things. But what The Untamed does do is remove some of his culpability, or at least temper it - both for Jin Zixuan's death and the massacre at Nightless City, which are two moments that contribute to a strong tragic arc in the first life, which makes for a more powerful (imo) arc in the second life. Removing, or at least lessening, Wei Wuxian's culpability for Jin Zixuan's death and Jiang Yanli's death makes him more a victim of circumstance than of his own human flaws, and at least for me, a character who is doomed by their own flaws is a far more compelling one than one who just happens to fall victim to outside forces. It makes him, I would argue, more passive and less of an active force, and I think the culpability for those two deaths - and the loss of control that causes it - makes for a more powerful narrative than that of a man who is victimized by someone else's actions.

Jin Guangyao was a good Chief Cultivator. I see people talk about him as though he was corrupt and evil and just plotting all the time, but the Bad Things™ he does mostly happen before his tenure as Chief Cultivator and, even taking those into account, have a limited impact on the world at large (with the exception of Nie Mingjue's death, but even that I would argue has more personal repercussions than broader political ones). As far as his responsibility for the cultivation world at large, we have no evidence prior to his downfall that he is negatively perceived by people, except for the fact of his birth/origins.

this is more MDZS-related than Untamed specific, but: MXTX deserves praise for writing "problematic" and messy queer sex, but it's just not hot. I don't have a whole lot to add on this one, but one of my least favorite parts of some corners of The Untamed fandom are people who are thoroughgoing MXTX antis who are quick to cry about the ~problematic~ aspects of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian's sex life (which, honestly, I think are overstated a lot of the time, as is the weirdness of the sex scenes); however, in my opinion, the sex scenes as they stand just aren't very sexy, and I don't think that's intentional (as it arguably is in SVSSS). The sex scenes may be a shortcoming in the text, perhaps, but not the one certain people think it is.

this is again a stronger argument in the novel but I think it's present in the show as well: Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian are "there but for the grace of god" foils, but not in the sense of Jin Guangyao being "Wei Wuxian if he made bad moral choices" but in the sense of "who Wei Wuxian could've been if his circumstances were different." I've definitely written about this before and how much it drives me nuts the way people treat narrative foils in this story in general as Goofus and Gallant style duos, but this is a specific one. I think Jin Guangyao is an example of a story that runs alongside Wei Wuxian's, but ends in a different place, and I think the story isn't saying that he ends in that place because of something inherently worse about Jin Guangyao, but because of the way his circumstances happen to diverge from Wei Wuxian's in specific key ways. In some ways his ending is even a near beat-for-beat rewrite of Wei Wuxian's death, and Wei Wuxian receives the grace of a second life not because of any inherent merit, but actually because of his bad reputation. I think this goes for Xue Yang, too, actually.

I absolutely know I'm forgetting things and there are probably things back in my bitchy opinions tag that I could dig out, but here's at least a few that came to mind.

[happypeachsludgeflower]

Me: tragic that so much time has passed since official content was made for svsss that the fandom died, now it’s just me and my lonesome

Svsss fandom: stop telling people I’m dead!

Me: sometimes I can still hear it’s voice

[airlocksandaviaries]

ICE STOP FLIRTING WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND HE HAS A TUMMY ACHE

[nat-20s]

Me, a known Deadpool fan: god I hope nobody thinks I'm a Deadpool fan

[hearthouses]

I was tagged by @ladyculebras!

make a poll with five of your all time favorite characters and then tag five people to do the same. see which character is everyone's favorite!

Tagging!: @theirwolfbicanthrope @theyearofthewolf @charlottenewtons @holocrone @finelinens and anyone else who wants to do this!

[king-k-ripple]

Top 5 More Pokémon

Number 1: Ho-oh

Number 2: Smeargle

Number 3: Gulpin

Number 4: Pyroar

Number 5: Feebas

[goldkirk]

i’m OBSESSED with Karlach [screaming, crying, hurtling at stone cave walls to bleed out “!!!!!!!!” emotions, lying facedown in my bedroll, screaming some more]

[bergoose]

the vegetarian experience watching the new episode

[crownleys]

top 5 songs rn!

Top Five Songs!! I've been listening to these on repeat recently.

Unknown/Nth by Hozier

Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan

My Kink is Karma by Chappell Roan

Gooey by Glass Animals

Tea, Milk & Honey by Oh Pep!

[sardonic-the-writer]

Babe wake up new meme format just dropped

[veliseraptor]

Top 5 aquatic mammals? Can specify different subspecies

ooh fun and I get to include pictures for this one. I could've included pictures for other ones, but animal pictures are more fun.

1. Leopard seal. they're big, they're fierce, they're adorable, they have faces that constantly look a little smug. I love them sooooo much.

2. Orca. they're big, they're fierce, they're adorable. sensing a trend here? you are correct. also I'm just immensely fond of them because they live in my (former) area and that makes me very happy to have them there, hanging around. I saw a baby once, it was amazing.

3. Harbor seal. bit basic perhaps but I stand by it. say "classic" instead. they're so goddamn cute I can't handle it. I went kayaking once and they kept popping up around my kayak just checking me out. my mom does open water swimming with her friends and sometimes seals swim with them for a little while. absolutely perfect, who's doing it like them.

4. Humpback whale. gotta put a baleen whale on here, for fairness. I'm deeply fond of these guys mostly because they hang around my hometown and that makes me happy. they're locals! (some of the time.) big and beautiful and they sing.

5. River otter. sea otters get all the press (not that they don't deserve it!) but I personally am a river otter fan. something about the way they run and also the way they sleep in a pile is just irresistible to me. I was a docent at an aquarium for a summer and they had two river otters and one of them used to sleep with his tail stuck in his mouth, and one time I was standing by their enclosure and watched him take his tail out of his mouth, yawn, then put it back in and go to sleep. I think about that a lot.

thank you for giving me an excuse to think about aquatic animals and also look up pictures of them.

[eemamminy-art]

what are your top 5 minions in ffxiv 🐛

wind up matanga

wind up arkasodara

wind up lyse

wind up anima

minitek conveyer

These are all my go-to's for my main character anyway!!! 🥰 honorable mentions:

bitty duckbill

torgal pup

wind up pupu

wind up nu mou

The Great Serpent of Ronka (He must be capitalized for He is all-seeing, all-powerful)

On my Zenos alt I like to use the ancient one, shoebill, or the bullpup minions, and on my Aymeric and Estinien alts they always have out minions of each other 😊😊😊